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Hi all!
Now that Upgrade 4 is out and about in large quantities we have now discovered a few SNAFUs that happen out in the scary, real world that is home computing. Fortunately the rate of problems is extremely small and so far most are easily worked around. We've identified a few issues that have similar causes which we have clear instructions for work arounds here they are:
1. CMRT Windows customers need to re-license their original key. This is a result of improvements to the licensing system which CMBN, CMBS, and CMFB are already using. To do this launch CMRT with the Upgrade and the first time enter your Engine 4 key. Exit and then use the "Activate New Products" shortcut in your CMRT folder, then enter your Engine 3 license key. That should do the trick.
2. CMRT and CMBN MacOS customers have a similar situation as #2, however the "Activate New Products" is inside the Documents folder in their respective CM folders. For CMBN you have to go through the process described above for each of your license keys. There is no special order to follow.
3. For CMBS and CMFB customers, you need to use the Activate New Products shortcut and enter your Upgrade 4 key. If you launch the game and see a screen that says "LICENSE FAILURE: Base Game 4.0 is required." that is an indication you haven't yet gone through that procedure. Provided you had a properly functioning copy before installing the Upgrade, that should be all you need to do. If in the future you have to install from scratch on a new system you'll need to do the same procedure for both your original license key and your Upgrade 4.0 key.
4. There's always a weird one and here it is. A few Windows users are not getting "Activate New Products" shortcuts created during installation. Apparently anti-virus software is preventing the installer from doing its job. This might not be a problem right now, but it will prove to be an issue at some point in the future. The solution is to create your own shortcut using the following steps:
Disable your anti-virus software before you do anything. Go to your Desktop, right click on the Desktop itself, select NEW->SHORTCUT, use BROWSE to locate the CM EXE that you are trying to fix. The location is then written out. After it type in a single space and then paste this:

-showui

Click NEXT and give your new Shortcut a name (doesn't matter what). Confirm that and you're done. Double click on the new Shortcut and you should be prompted to license whatever it is you need to license.
At this time we have not identified any issues that have not been worked around. Let's hope it stays that way
Steve

We've reorganized our Combat Mission Forums to reflect the fact that most of you are now running Engine 4 and that means you're all using the same basic code. Because of that, there's no good reason to have the discussion about Combat Mission spread out over 5 separate sets of Forums. There is now one General Discussion area with Tech Support and Scenario/Mod Tips sub forums. The Family specific Tech Support Forums have been moved to a new CM2 Archives area and frozen in place.
You might also notice we dropped the "x" from distinguishing between the first generation of CM games and the second. The "x" was reluctantly adopted back in 2005 or so because at the time we had the original three CM games on European store shelves entitled CM1, CM2, and CM3 (CMBO, CMBB, and CMAK). We didn't want to cause confusion so we added the "x". Time has moved on and we have to, so the "x" is now gone from our public vocabulary as it has been from our private vocabulary for quite a while already. Side note, Charles *NEVER* used the "x" so now we're all speaking the same language as him. Which is important since he is the one programming them

In brief Gamebooster will shut down any programs that are running in the background that you might not be aware of, which in turn gives you much better performance overall.

Gamebooster only does the background program shutdown when you start any game that you have configured with Gamebooster. Once you exit your game, Gamebooster reverts your computer back to it's original background running programs.

Change the location of the executable to wherever you have it installed.

Also, run it as administrator with Windows XP SP2 compatibility.

2nd, once you get into the game (for me, all the way into the 3D map), hit your "Windows" key. The game should go out of the forefront. Alt-tab back to it, and hopefully the framerate will be good. Note that others have just been able to alt-tab. I can't, because it crashes on me every time. The windows key works fine though.

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- Go to Computer /
- Local disk C: or similar, varies upon computer. This is where your game files are saved. If you have trouble finding this, right click the launcher shortcut you have on your home screen and select 'open file location'. This will take you to the next step.
- Program Files (x86) /
- CMBB (your game files) /
- Right click the launcher called 'Barbarossa to Berlin' and select properties.

Select compatibility, and tick the box for 'run this program in compatibility mode for:' Select the Windows XP (Service pack 3) option. Additionally tick the box below 'run this program as an administrator'.

Then, launch the game and once in a mission, alt-tab out of the game, and then alt-tab back in (this is minimizing the game, and then reopening it). I know this sounds weird but if you do this every time you enter a mission you wont suffer any issues with extremely low frame rates or similar issues, and it takes a few seconds to do.

Good luck - xXmush.

Apologies to you people with a bit more knowledge about file directories and such. I made an easy to follow guide that people of all generations and level of PC knowledge can understand :). I would imagine quite a few people of all ages would enjoy the tactical masterpiece and historical recreation that is the Combat Mission games. I have loved them ever since I was a kid, and was really sad at first when these games didn't seem to run on newer operating systems.